Silenced
by Irhaboggles
Summary: For all of her life, Elphaba was silenced. Whether it was by family or bullies, there was always at least one person telling her to shut up. Fast-forward decades later and it seems like nothing much has changed, except this time, the silence is even worse. This time, Elphaba is silenced by her choices and actions, and that is the most painful and permanent sort of silence of all.


Elphaba spent her whole life being silenced. From the very moment she was born, there had always been someone there to shut her up or keep her quiet. First, there was Frex either yelling at her or shoving a pacifier in her mouth, and that all happened in the first three years of her life. After that, even though the pacifier went away, Frex's demands for her silence did not. And even when Nessarose, Elphaba's little sister, was born, Frex was still unfairly harsh towards her. Nessa could cry and speak all she wanted, but if Elphaba said too much for too long, Frex would snap.

"Elphaba, stop talking so much," Frex sighed tiredly as Elphaba continued to beg him not to make her go to the market that day. Although his words were soft, they were not kind or gentle and they stung Elphaba quite deeply. All the fight had gone out of her and she bowed her head in obedience to her father's wishes. She returned home about two hours later, bringing back everything her father had asked for, and more. That latter part being all the cuts and bruises she gained from attacks perpetrated against her by the neighborhood kids because of her green skin. Frex seemed surprised by the bruises and Elphaba wanted dearly to tell him why it had happened, but she knew that if she tried, he would just scoff and wave it off. He would tell her that kids were just being kids. Or that her green skin would never go away, so she would just have to get used to the bullies. Since she didn't want to hear all that, she remained silent instead.

"Elphaba! Shut up!" Nessarose snapped as her older sister pushed her along in her new wheelchair. The green girl had been fretting all day that the wheels weren't working and Nessa was sick of hearing her sister go on and on about how they should try to salvage the old wheelchair.

"The wheels work fine, so just let it go!" she snapped and Elphaba was silenced immediately after that. This pretty much defined how their relationship went, Nessa always demanding Elphaba's silence and Elphaba always giving it. Elphaba never spoke much when she was around Nessa, or Frex for that matter. And then there were all the other people in her town that always silenced her. Whether it was through insults, threats, attacks, teasing, pranking or some combination, Elphaba learned very fast that there wasn't a single person around that wanted to hear her speak, even if it was to protest the injustices being done to her. Especially when it was to protest. So Elphaba became an unnaturally quiet child, but when she was punished every time she spoke, did she really have any other choice than to be silenced?

But even after Elphaba moved away from that awful little town, things did not improve. The students at Shiz University were just as horrible to her as any of the kids back home, and every time she tried to defend herself, she was silenced.

"Oh, shut up, quit being such a baby!" some of the boys sneered as they continued to throw beer cans at her.

"Thropp! Hush! You are disrupting the lecture!" some of her professors cried as some of the students tried to steal her notes.

"Pipe down, will ya!? No one likes a loud-mouth!" someone else demanded when Elphaba got into a heated political debate with a professor.

"Be quiet! You think anyone cares about you or your opinion?" some of the mean girls elbowed Elphaba when she tried to insist that they should leave her alone. Elphaba simply bit her lip in anger and hurt and moved onward, silenced once again by the world around her.

But Elphaba did finally managed to get in at least one positive memory about being silenced. And it came from the strangest of places. Somehow, along the way, Elphaba became best friends with the girl whom she used to consider her worst enemy. As their friendship grew, Elphaba became more and more talkative and open around her until it reached the point in which Elphaba would make all sorts of rude and playful jokes just to incite a reaction out of her new friend.

"Elphie!" the girl, Galinda, cried in disgust.

"What's wrong, my sweet?" Elphaba asked in mock innocence. "Tell me how I have upset you today!" but Galinda couldn't bring herself to verbalize her complaint because she didn't want to repeat the fact that Elphaba had just asked her what color their birth child would be if it were scientifically possible for them to make a baby. Would the baby be pink, or green? Elphaba had asked. Or would it matter based on which of them was playing the more dominant and traditionally male role in the bed. Suffice to say, such a scandalous joke had turned Galinda very, very red.

"Or perhaps it would be brown, since pink and green together make brown," Elphaba snickered. "Or maybe it would be a random-chance sort of thing? Unless green is a recessive trait. Or perhaps it depends on which one of us would carry it?"

"Oh, shut up!" Galinda grunted, still blushing about the idea of herself and Elphaba having a child.

"It was just a thought," Elphaba shrugged innocently, but she fell quiet nonetheless. Even if she wasn't aware of it, she was so used to shutting up when told to that it applied even in silly times like this.

"Just a thought!" Galinda echoed with a snort, but then she suddenly got an idea... "I mean, it is preposterous, really! You know that we could never have a biological child together."

"Of course I know that, I'm not stupid," Elphaba replied with a scoff.

"Then let us skip the idea of making a baby and just make love instead," Galinda replied. Now it was Elphaba's turn to be caught off guard.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Shhhh," Galinda replied, then she pressed her lips to Elphaba's and the green girl was silenced once again...

"You _were_ serious," Elphaba panted about 30 minutes later.

"Shhh," Galinda warned again. "You don't want the whole flooring knowing, do you?" Elphaba huffed in mock annoyance but, once again, she fell silent. And it was easy to be quiet once Galinda had started to kiss her again, taking over all control of her mouth. These were the only times in which Elphaba did not mind being silenced.

But those were also the last times in which Elphaba did not mind being silenced. As the years rolled on, Elphaba and Galinda grew apart and Elphaba took up a campaign to promote Animal rights. Noble as this sounded, it put her at odds with all the major political leaders in Oz. In time, she was forced to flee from the public eye, having since been deemed an enemy of the state. She found refuge in a remote castle in the west. It became her sanctuary and place of hiding against all of her would-be assassins that wanted to silence her in the most permanent way possible.

But the funny thing was, even though she managed to evade every single attack thrown at her, she might as well have been dead for all the good she was doing for her cause. By the very act of being run into that abandoned castle, she was trapped, and unable to speak as freely as she wished. She could rant and rave all she wanted, but there was never anyone around to hear her, and what was the point in being able to speak without someone to listen? So even though Elphaba kept her life, she lost her political role as an activist, her voice silenced not by an action, but by her own distance from the rest of society. Once again, Elphaba became an unusually quiet individual. It was not a fun or happy life for her.

There did come one night when Elphaba finally broke down, screaming and crying, shaking her fists at the skies and ranting and raging like a fiend. She shouted, yelled, hollered, cussed and did everything in between, crying out her entire life's story. For the first time ever, she was able to get it all out without anyone silencing her. But it still didn't make her feel any better. Why? Well, because, even now, despite being free from the oppressive nature of society, no one could hear her scream. No one could hear Elphaba. This time, by her own isolation, Elphaba had been silenced, and it was one of the most permanent and powerful silences of all: a self-imposed silence. No one would ever hear her again.

**AN: Just thinking about how lonely Elphaba must be in her castle. How funny, too, that she spent her whole life pursuing civil rights, which is a thing that needs a lot of voices and is centered around debates and opinions, but Elphaba is so isolated that she's silenced herself from the debates through her own decisions. And Elphaba is truly safe and free in her castle but, at the same time, still practically a prisoner. Sorry it's such a downer fic! (Also, can you believe I wrote a whole fic over the concept of Elphaba and silence? Am I crazy or am I crazy? LOL)**


End file.
